A FTSE-100 company that provides out-of-hours GP care for the NHS faked
records hundreds of times to mask serious short-staffing, a damning report
by the National Audit Office has found.

Employees at Serco, a multinational that made a £302 million profit last year, falsified records to make it seem 100 per cent of emergency patients in Cornwall were getting a face-to-face appointment in an hour. In fact, a quarter were having to wait longer.

Between January and June last year, staff made 252 “unauthorised changes to performance data”, found the NAO report, resulting in seven instances where the company’s out-of-hours performance was “overstated”.

The details only came to light thanks to whistleblowers, who the NAO concluded had come forward despite being “fearful of raising concerns”.

On Wednesday night, MPs described the cover-up as “disgraceful” and said the affair raised serious concerns that “cost-cutting” private firms were putting patients at risk for the sake of profit.

The report found Serco “regularly had insufficient staff to fill all clinical shifts”, and “frequently redeployed” GPs, taking them out of cars for home visits to cover “clinic shifts instead”.

Cornwall, a large county with 532,000 people, takes two hours to drive from end to end. Yet on some occasions just one GP was on duty.

The NAO said NHS managers should in future use all available data to “review and challenge Serco’s performance” and, if found to be failing “ultimately terminate the contract”.

They should also discuss whether to specify “minimum staffing levels for a safe service”, recommended the report.

Margaret Hodge MP, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said Serco had “fallen unacceptably short of essential standards of quality and safety”.

She said: “Although no evidence suggests that patients have received unsafe care, it is shocking that there were not enough people on the job.”

She found it “disgraceful and “astonishing” that Serco had “fiddled the figures 252 times".

“In one instance, Serco falsely claimed that 100 per cent of emergency callers received an face-to-face appointment within 60 minutes when in reality it was only 75 per cent, falling short of the performance stated”, she said.

Serco originally won the contract in 2006, offering to provide out-of-hours care for £6.1 million a year. Previously it had been run by a not-for-profit GP co-operative, which charged £7.5 million.

“Serco had a duty to provide safe evening and weekend care. But it badly let down the NHS and its patients by operating without enough staff and falsifying figures.”

And he claimed: “This report offers a glimpse of the future NHS under this Government, where more and more private companies will provide NHS services.”

The NAO report did note: “Serco has emphasised that the changes made to performance data were wholly unacceptable, and the staff identified as responsible have left the company.

“In addition, the primary care trust has strengthened its oversight of the out-of-hours service and its contract with Serco.”

Dr Louis Warren, who manages the service, said: “The NAO report has not only substantiated what the CQC and other reports have already shown - that the service is safe and well regarded by patients - but also confirms that we have taken swift and decisive action in response to the previous CQC report.

“The only outstanding minor issue noted was that we need to take further action to increase the number of health advisors; our recruitment campaign will have this resolved by the end of March."